#People can change

[moishe-pipick]

[cococowboah]

I think about this video whenever I realize how far I've come after leaving the JW organization.

I went from being a self-hating, self-denying bisexual trans kid who kept insisting my boyish tendencies were "just a phase" and that I'd grow out of them eventually, a person who couldn't even function outside of a relationship because I had been taught I was a woman and a woman is nothing without a man, a person who longed so badly to immerse myself in queer relationships and queer culture but couldn't because I believed in my heart that if I so much as thought about two men kissing I'd burst into flames,

To today, where I'm an openly awkward trans guy who just wants to write gay stories and drink coffee and enjoy the life I finally have now that I'm not spending all my free time knocking on doors and handing people shitty magazines.

Even my mom made a change, she was a MASSIVE homophobe even coming out of the religion, she referred to gay relationships as "grody," she never held back disgust when a gay couple were shown kissing on TV, she made every effort to be offensive towards queer folk and even when I was within a similar mindset I found her to be extreme about it, because we weren't supposed to hate the person, we were supposed to hate tha act.

And now, she reads all my books, yes, even the gay ones. She supports me. She was openly approving of Kai and Alan's relationship in my ExJW novel and gave me advice when writing it, she openly mocked the fictional homophobic Dad and stated how disgusting HE was, completely flipping her old comments on the head. She still doesn't "understand" what it means to be trans but she has stated she will support me no matter what and that's what's important to me.

Yes, Caleb's mom, people CAN change.

People CAN go from being self-hating forced homophobes into proud, loving people who acknowledge gay love is valid. I've seen it with my own eyes, and I can guarantee I will see it a million times more!

[belonareyna]

Being a victim of abuse doesn't excuse you for being an abuser

[thegreenwallrabbit-blog]

So non-cannon head cannon for a fic I have is this, anyone wants to use any of this in a story feel free.

1. Luis does not get killed by Saddler or Krauser, instead gets tortured, whipped and branded on his back with the  Los Iluminados cult symbol by Saddler for trying to escape the cult for “going agist his blood, and forgetting his family” ins Saddler eyes and for refusing to give information on Leon’s and Ashely’s location or giving Leons number as they broke Luis’ phone before realizing they could have sent the video of his torturer to us him as bait. 

2. Leon and Ashely find the video of this torture and branding along with the key to Luis’s lab he was brining them to help them with their parasites on Krauser’s body. They end up finding Luis locked in his lab where he was unconscious and shirtless laying on the floor were he’d passed out from being whipped, beaten and branding and they patch him up. 

3. Luis Serra’s father was Saddlers Brother and while not married to Luis mother refused to disclose to his brother who the mother and his child was, as he was opposed to the cult and was ultimately killed by Saddler before Luis was born. But Luis mother managed to tell her father(Luis grandfather) of her child’s father and why despite both of them being strong Catholics they decided despite it being a sin to having the child be born out of wed loc it was  for their son’s own safety that no one know who his father was. Apparently the Saddler males have some genetic resistance to the Las Plagas parasitic effects which is how Saddler became the cult leader and how Luis had enough control to get his own parasite removed. As Saddler has no Children but wants to have his families blood continue he wanted Luis to join the cult but after he disappeared when his maternal grandfather was killed it took a while to track him down. When they did they kidnapped him rather then recruited him because I can’t see him being that trusting of companies after he left Umbrella once he found out what they did and it explain why he disliked what they did so much.

4. Luis ends up escaping with Leon and Ashely and gets a pardon and US visa once its revealed that all of his work for  Los Iluminados  was done as a prisoner under torture and duress, that he helped remove the parasite from Leon and Ashley  and he is very willing to join the BSAA, ROS or some other anti-bio terreor organization as a R and D scientist to hunt done Umbrella,  Los Iluminados  and others who use B.O.W’s . Ashely was very vocal and instrumental in helping get him pardoned as in her words “he saved both me and Leon from being mind controlled puppets” . 

[mamuzzy]

Dad saying I should tell my boss to stop overexhaust me during work, because I'll end up being sick and sinking back to depression again makes me so loved.

I'll probably end up being burnt out and overwhelmed anyway, I already am. But it means a lot that Dad actually worries about my mental health and he used the exact word "depression". <3

[i-think-you-should-leave]

Glass house, white Ferrari, live for New Year's Eve. Sloppy steaks at Truffoni's. Big rare cut of meat with water dumped all over it. Water splashing around the table makes the night so much more fun. After the club, go to Truffoni's for sloppy steaks. They'd say "no sloppy steaks!" but they can't stop you from ordering a steak and a glass of water. Before you knew it, we were dumping that water on those steaks. The waiters were coming to try and snatch 'em up. We had to eat as fast as we could. Oh I miss those nights! I was a piece of shit, though.

[mw-draws]

do you believe a person can truly change?

I think so. it takes a lot of time, self reflection, a lot of hard work and it can be difficult to reevaluate everything about yourself, but yeah, I think people are capable of change

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Convinced my queerphobic brother to be less queerphobic and he has NO IDEA!

Okay, I just had a very genuinely entertaining and somewhat uplifting experience as a half closeted aroace. Now while this was a positive experience for me, general trigger warning for queerphobia.

So, one of my brothers (Sandwich God, not J-Dog), who I love very much, is unfortunately an asshole that I constantly wish was a better person and that I cheer along with every time he's able to overcome one of his bigoted beliefs or unhealthy behaviors. He's AuDHD (not related to being an asshole) and frequently has trouble communicating his emotions and ideas, but therapy has made all of us better about it and so most of the time nowadays, when we have conversations, we're actually able to understand and assimilate the other person's perspective (I am so proud of him for the progress he's made and I also regularly want to deck him for the progress he hasn't made. It's a complicated relationship).

One of the ways he is an asshole is that he is rampantly queerphobic. This is the main reason I am half closeted---I am not ready to sacrifice the good rapport we have because he isn't at an accepting point in his life, and I know that the queerphobia is something he can overcome with time and positive exposure. So I can't be publicly out and proud while we live in the same house if I want to have the kind of productive conversations about queerness with him that I am currently having. It's messed up, but so is queerphobia in any form.

So. He doesn't know that I'm aroace. He is aggressively queerphobic and heteronormative and is going on about how he thinks that everybody has a natural drive to get married and have kids by 30.

I offhandedly comment that I think sex is gross (apothisexual here) and that I never want to do it. And he kind of stares at me. You can see the gears turning in his brain as he tries to assimilate this information. He decides it must be something about how our mother (victim of sexual abuse) raised me that makes me like that. I shut that down very quickly by just telling him "Do you know how many sex talks my mom has had with me and how much LESS grossed out by sex that made me?" Which is true by the way! I didn't understand why anyone would want to do it before those talks, especially with all the associated risks. Now I am 100% confident that I don't want to, but the idea that other people want to and do have sex doesn't gross me out at all, just so long as they're not spewing details in front of me.

And he just stares at me in confusion. And he says "Maybe your brain is just broken." I say, "I am confident that it is a me thing and not a thing about how I was raised. I don't ever want to have sex and if I'm still single at 65, I will.be perfectly happy." I go into a few more details to assure him of this: I've never had so much as a fictional crush. I got to have the fun experience of having teenage girl only sleepovers and listening to every other girl rave about the hot boys they want to kiss and just tell them "That's great! I'm so happy for you! Me? No, I don't want to kiss any boys. Or girls. Or anyone."

Now, I am being incredibly entertained by his expressions this whole time. You can tell that his brain is having a war with his misguided belief of "queer people don't actually exist, they're all just deluded" and his factual understanding of what I'm saying. He trusts me, I have no reason to lie, and this absolutely matches up with what he's observed from my behavior.

And finally, he goes. "Huh. I still think you're broken or something, but if you're fine with it, I guess that's okay."

FELLAS! Do ya'll understand that something magical just happened here?! Before this conversation, my brother was one of those queerphobes that saw it as his job to personally inform every queer he sees that they're wrong and need to stop. And in this one conversation, I triggered a paradigm shift from THAT to "I may think they're wrong, but I guess they're happy and they're not hurting anyone, so I should probably leave it alone."

DO YOU GUYS REALIZE WHAT A VICTORY THIS IS? I may not have used the words asexual or aromantic. I may not have made him realize that diversity in how humans experience love is normal and good actually. But I helped him make a big step from actively hurting people to passively bigoted. And being passively bigoted is still bad, don't get me wrong. But it's still so much better than where he was before this talk. I can only hope that a) it sticks and b) I can keep having conversations with him like this where he's able to internally break down those destructive behaviors.

Today was a victory for me personally and for every queer person he'll meet in the future. He's still an asshole. But he is now less of an asshole than he was before, and that's important.

[a-side-character]

Ancillary Mercy - Anne Leckie

Chapter 8, page 130

"And you certainly don't have to apologize for insisting your lover treat you with some basic consideration."

Photo description under cut:

A cropped photo of a page from the book Ancillary Mercy, by Anne Leckie. It reads,

"'Just between you and me - well, and Ship, of course -' I glanced over at Five, who left the room. 'Seivarden has behaved the same way to countless other people in the past, both lovers and not, long before she had the problems that ended with her off duty in Medical now. She was born surrounded by wealth and privilege. She thinks she's learned to question that. But she hasn't learned quite as much as she thinks she has, and having that pointed out to her, well, she doesn't react well to it. You are under no obligation to be patient with this. I think your relationship has been good for her, and good for you, at least in some ways. But I don't think you have any obligation to continue if it's going to be hurtful to you. And you certainly don't have to apologize for insisting your lover treat you with some basic consideration.' As I had spoken, Ekalu's face hadn't changed. Now, as I finished, the muscles around her mouth twitched and tremored, just barely perceptibly. For a moment I thought she was about to cry. 'So,' I continued, 'on to business.'"

[panharmonium]

“phew...i managed to keep them happy.”

[weirdcat1213]

If I cried with vinland saga vash would bawl for days

[elmomausstuff]

My fav characters in sex education are adam and his dad because they are so real. They have such an intense development in my opinion. There is no good or bad… only forgiveness, and working on themselves. He tries to be a good dad. He did shit at it and just because he knows he did wrong… he need to works on himself. Adam went through shit because of him and it’s so hard for him to love and forgive him again. Idk how to express my feelings for them. It’s just not black and white. He can change but he need to make an effort and he’s ready to change. People can change. It just give me some kind of hope in humanity and also reminds me of how simple but how complicated we are. My personal hopecore

[russnightlife]

There are very few priests whose articles I would post on here, or anywhere. But this article is something special.

[sinsmadeclear]

Grog's History

[usagi-best-boy]

People can change

Mob Psycho 100

[lesless]

I used to be so angry about the government & my anger wanted me to burn it all down. As I have changed through the years I remember that the only meaningful change comes from a place of love. So, I have been trying to reframe my dissatisfaction with how things are from a place of love.

I love the people in my country & the lands I live in, I want them to be better taken care of. I don’t want people to suffer unnecessarily if their health or their finances takes a hit, because I love them I want them to have somewhere safe to fall. I love the lands & the wilds in my country, I want them to be better taken care of because I love them. I will vote on policy that helps them, I will make an effort to be kind to those I disagree with so we can focus on common ground, I will pick up trash when I hike, I will eat local whenever I can, I will sort my garbage, I will show up with patience, I will slow down at crossings—because I love.

& it’s hard, & it’s grueling, & I’m still very very angry at how things operate, but I know from experience I’ll go the extra mile for love that I wouldn’t for hate or spite. I don’t think we can hate this country into a state of being better. I think people with the most to gain want us to hate each other if we disagree instead of love each other into a solution. & I do think the people who are most wounded take their opposition’s hate as evidence that they��re correct & morally superior.

I don’t want to be the bigger person, but if I love all the things I love I will find patience to advocate for them in a more effective way.